Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

How to Play Daily Fantasy Games

OCT. 11, 2015

Fantasy games have been transformed in recent years, from season-long contests among small groups to daily and weekly games on websites like DraftKings and FanDuel that offer huge payouts. Here is a look at how daily fantasy football is played.

Selecting a Contest

$5M N.F.L. Sunday Games

Fantasy players choose from a variety of games which offer a range of payouts, odds and point formats.

$1 Million Sunday Games

$750K N.F.L. Week

$250K Thursday Night Blitz

Entry Fee

Each contest requires an entry fee that can range from 25 cents to thousands of dollars. The higher the fee, the larger the potential payout.

Entry

Prizes

$25

$5,000,000

$10

$1,000,000

$1

$250,000

Assembling a Team

Using a theoretical salary cap, rosters are filled with a designated number of players and positions.

All

QB

RB

WR

TE

K

Name

Salary

QB Peyton Manning

$9,900

N.F.L. players are assigned a salary based on their expected production.

QB Tom Brady

$8,900

QB Drew Brees

$8,400

Compiling Points

ROSTER

Each fantasy team earns points based on the players’ actual game statistics. The fantasy teams with the most points win money.

Name

Points

QB Teddy Bridgewater

13.2

RB Jonathan Stewart

7.9

WR Antonio Brown

28.3

How Insiders Could Have Gamed the System

Reports surfaced recently that employees of the fantasy-game websites might have used to their advantage information not available to the public to enter tournaments on rival sites. Here is how that information could be useful.

Creating Rosters

Fantasy-game contestants want rosters full of high-performing players. But there are few as good as Aaron Rodgers, for instance, so it usually leads to rosters that are similar among the thousands of contestants.

Finding the Sleeper

The trick to winning the big payouts is to supplement the obvious picks with players who are under the radar, called sleeper picks. They are chosen by far fewer teams but might have a breakout game with gaudy statistics.

Using Inside Knowledge

Having a winning roster that is the same as many others splits the prize money many ways, leading to smaller payouts. It is alleged that employees of these gaming sites, who have access to everyone else’s rosters, were able to create more distinctive rosters for themselves. If one or two of their sleeper picks had a big day, then the employee won big.